


The Grenade Launcher of Christmas Present

by SaucePear



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Action, Alien Cultural Differences, Angst, Friendship, Gen, Renegade Commander Shepard, Swearing, explicit and graphic violence, non-graphic references to child trafficking, takes place during ME2 before Omega-4 relay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 11:53:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5538866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaucePear/pseuds/SaucePear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the 2015 Mass Effect Secret Santa.</p><p>Christmas shopping on Omega with Garrus and Tali goes to hell when someone recognizes Garrus as part of Archangel. Eager to use the excuse for a little team bonding, Shepard calls in the whole squad for some Christmas mayhem. Featuring vorcha, grenade launchers and some really scummy people having a very bad time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Grenade Launcher of Christmas Present

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yellow_umbrella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellow_umbrella/gifts).



> This is a secret santa gift for Naughtielus through the Mass Effect Secret Santa tumblr, I hope you enjoy it and that you have a wonderful holiday!
> 
> This work is, unfortunately, not beta read, since all my friends are off doing normal Christmas things. I've looked over it myself with several editing passes, but there could easily be things I've missed. If so, I apologize.

Garrus is bored. It’s blisteringly, blindingly obvious to anyone who’s ever spent more than five minutes with the guy. Shepard takes a quick peek back at him standing across from the kiosk she and Tali are perusing, and she can see him methodically checking sight-lines and subtly eyeing up everyone that walks past for threat-level. He’s clearly bored out of his little pseudo-avian mind.

However Garrus’s Olympic levels of boredom are not her problem. Her problem is that Tali, somehow, has no idea about presents. Unbelievable. A whole culture that bases its rite of passage into adulthood on finding the most bitching gift possible, and she’s clueless. Who let this happen?

Shepard takes a deep breath, pinches the bridge of her nose (for dramatic effect) and tries again, “Ok, look, Tali, I love you, you’re wonderful, but you’re wrong. I am absolutely allowed to buy presents for my crew. It’s completely reasonable and it doesn’t mean I want them off my ship and _why would you even think that_?”

Tali is wringing her hands and bouncing a little from foot to foot, she’s clearly uncomfortable and Shepard has no idea what’s wrong. Its mid-December by the Earth calendar they follow on the SR2 and Shepard has decided that doing something Christmassy might be a good way to get the crew to bond a little. She knows it’s a bit of a tall order, what with Cerberus… and aliens… and general lack of goodwill all round, but hey, who doesn’t like presents? Plus it’s all on the Illusive Man’s dime and doesn’t that just give her the warm fuzzies all over?

So, Christmas. Nothing big, the ship isn’t going to be decked out in gaudy lights or anything, but it would be nice to do a bit of a gift exchange. Shepard had considered a secret santa, but the thought of her poor crewmen trying desperately to find an appropriate gift for a drell assassin, or tank born krogan, the threat of her disapproval if they get it wrong… Well… that was just too much of a headache. So Shepard has decided that buying gifts for weird aliens was solely her responsibility.

Which brings her here, to a little kiosk on Omega selling beautiful handmade headscarves, and Tali’s apparent total-body discomfort with the idea of being given a gift.

Eventually the fidgeting resolves itself into speech, “You’re my captain Shepard! You’re not meant to get a gift for me! If anything I should have gotten you something when I was made _vas Normandy_ … and I didn’t… and it’s terrible of me and I thought maybe you didn’t mind, because you never said anything… But… but if you’re giving everyone their _leaving-gift_ then maybe I was wrong, and you are mad? I’m sorry! You’re human… I didn’t know what I should do! I’m really sorry! I can…”

Shepard holds up a hand to stem the flow of words and gently places the other on Tali’s slim shoulder. Blinking twice, she tries to catch up to Tali’s quick babble, sifting words around like puzzle pieces. She stares into the purple fog of the mask, where Tali’s eyes are (probably) and says, “What.”

Tali goes to speak again, but Shepard puts a hand over her suit speaker in the closest she can get to a finger on the lips.

“No. No, no, no… Shhh… shut up. Hang on. Ok so what you’re saying is that quarians only give gifts in the context of pilgrimage?”

The hand still on her speaker, Tali nods, a little uncertainly.

“What? Like not even birthdays?”

Tali shakes her head, her posture giving off an air of desperate confusion.

Shepard groans, Tali and Garrus are her closest friends aboard the Normandy or off of it, they’ve been with her the longest and she trusts them implicitly. She _thought_ they would be the best choice for a little shopping trip. Clearly the alien cultural differences are a lot bigger than she’d first thought. Time to call for backup.

Activating the com so she doesn’t have to shout she lets a little of her exasperation filter into her voice, “Garrus, get over here. Tali is being ridiculous and quarian and I need backup.”

She receives an amused flanging hum in acknowledgement, and moments later there’s seven feet of looming turian staring down at her, “Shepard. Need me for something?”

Shepard masterfully refrains from rolling her eyes and points accusingly at Tali, “She’s getting weird about presents. Please tell me turians aren’t also weird about presents.”

Garrus tilts his head to the side, scratching his neck, he looks a little embarrassed, “Hmm… ah. Yeah ok. Uh.” He turns to Tali, “Humans give each other presents for absolutely no reason sometimes… it’s… really weird. You need to just go with it. She’s not mad at you, I think it means she’s… happy? I don’t know.”

“You’re fucking kidding me. You too? You were fine back on the SR1 you hypocritical spiky asshole! What the hell? Are humans the only aliens that like giving each other gifts?”

Garrus barks out a laugh at her outburst, “No! Of course not, turians give gifts all the time! A superior will gift their subordinates with the tools necessary to undertake their responsibilities… it’s… a whole thing. And back on the SR1? I was stressed out for weeks after you bought me that 300,000 credit sniper rifle. Weeks Shepard. I kept waiting for you to tell me what horrifically dangerous mission you wanted me to do with it, but you never said anything. I had to look it up on the extranet. _Humans_.” This last word is spoken with such a heavy, flanging disgust that Shepard bursts out laughing.

“Oh man, seriously? You thought what? That I was going to order you on a suicide mission or something because I bought you a pretty gun?”

He gives her a serious look, “Well yeah. Pretty much.”

That sobers her. Shit. She looks between her two friends. Tali is actually looking a little relieved now, which is good. But clearly there are some things that need to be explained here.

“Wow. Ok that’s… Yeah that needs to stop. I had no idea Garrus, I’m sorry. And Tali, I don’t know what a leaving-gift is, but this is definitely not that ok? So uh. Humans like to give gifts, I guess? We mostly give them for birthdays or Christmas, but sometimes just because we see something that we think someone might like… a friendship or affection thing would be the best way of looking at it. A way of showing that you care about someone and you’re thinking about them. Honestly, that’s all I meant…”

Garrus looks like he understands, and she can see that light of dry humour in his eye that means he’s about to say something ridiculous. Heading him off she turns back to Tali, “You never had a problem with me giving you new equipment on the SR1, Tali, why is this different?”

Tali just shrugs, “I needed it. Quarians all live on top of each other and we share everything, Shepard. If I need something and you give it to me, that’s not a gift, it’s just being sensible.”

Shepard blinks a little, taken aback.

Garrus looks offended, “So you don’t acknowledge the responsibility being conveyed when someone gives you the things you need? You don’t feel that connection to your task and your commander?”

Tali turns to him with a glare that’s visible even through her mask, hands on her hips, “Clearly not _Garrus_. I’m not turian! I don’t think about everything in terms of _duty_ and _obligation_!”

Shepard can see Garrus bristling, prepared to snipe back, and she quickly steps between them, hands up to ward off the argument.

“Woah! Woah guys. It’s cool. We all think about things differently. ‘Cause… you know, we’re all aliens to each other. Remember? Remember how we’re all aliens and nothing we do makes sense? Because _aliens_!”

Tali is looking slightly mollified and Shepard can see Garrus biting down on his laughter so she counts it a win. Dropping her hands down, one patting Tali on top of her helmet, the other the keel of Garrus’s armour, Shepard thinks. If even getting Garrus and Tali to accept Christmas gifts is this difficult, how hard is it going to be with some of the more… exotic… crew? It’s easy to forget that her friends grew up in entirely different cultures, they just feel so…. _human_ … most of the time. It would probably just be easier to forget this whole thing and just let the human crew exchange gifts, leaving the aliens out of it… they probably wouldn’t even notice with as much attention as anyone ever seems to pay to human holidays. But no. She made a promise, even if only to herself, and she’s going to keep it. Plus she’d feel absolutely rotten seeing everyone with a gift on Christmas except her alien crew. And the thought of not getting anything for her two best friends makes a whole black pit of guilt open up in her gut.

So. Powering through, she’s Commander Fucking Shepard and she can definitely handle some Christmas shopping. Clamping her hand down on the top of Tali’s head she slowly spins her around to look at the headscarves again, tugging Garrus by his cowl to follow.

“Ok, now that you understand what I’m trying to do here, Tali, which headscarf do you think is the prettiest? Garrus, which one do you think Tali would look prettiest in?” Her tone is pure Commander and the glint in her eye brooks no argument.

Tali either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care as she finally gets into the spirit and starts examining the scarves.

Garrus on the other hand has gone rigid with embarrassment. Shepard can see a dark blue flush spreading out from under his bandages and has to stifle a giggle when he makes an abrupt, strangled sound that she would definitely classify as a squawk.

“Ah… uh… I don’t…” he looks at her helplessly, “Shepard, please.” The look in his eyes is so desperate it’s criminal, she’s never seen such effective puppy-eyes on anything that didn’t have eyelashes. She won’t be taking pity though, she’s on a mission goddamn it, and her whole squad needs to pull their weight.

She holds up a deep purple cloth, edged in gold, it has a very angular geometric design woven into it and Shepard thinks it looks very much like Tali, just a bit more grown up and dangerous. She drapes it over the girl’s shoulders and nudges Garrus with an elbow. “Come on Garrus, help me out here? What do you think?”

“It’s… nice?” His voice is curiously flat, mandibles pulled in tight to his face.

Shepard probably shouldn’t take this much delight in making him uncomfortable, but it’s fairly harmless so she just laughs, whipping the cloth back and waving it in Tali’s face. “Here, Tali, what about this one?”

Tali lets out an adorable little squeal that has her suit speaker cutting out and makes a grab for the scarf. She gets halfway through a bounce of joy before she’s interrupted by Garrus’s shocked yell.

Whipping around, Shepard sees Garrus completely blindsided by a punch to the face. He doesn’t go down, instead grappling with his attacker. A horrible sinking feeling spreads through Shepard’s gut as she realizes how quiet the street has become, the only people on it suddenly looking at them with a distinctly aggressive intensity. Fuck.

_Damnit Shepard, this is why you don’t distract Garrus when he’s being ridiculous and paranoid! Because it’s not paranoia when you’re on Omega and everyone really is trying to kill you! Fuck!_

Berating herself isn’t going to fix anything though, so Shepard draws her SMG and fires up her tech armour, beside her she can hear Tali’s overclocked shields hum to life as she pulls out her shotgun.

And Joker laughed at her for bringing a fully prepared combat squad on a shopping trip. Shows what he knows.

In front of her, Garrus has a huge, taloned hand wrapped around his attacker’s throat, the pointed tips of his gauntlets pressing into the human’s neck with bruising strength. A trickle of blue runs down the injured side of his face, interrupted by the pistol that the man has wedged under his jaw. There is a low, continuous, rumbling growl coming from Garrus as he stands perfectly still. All along the street there are weapons being drawn, Shepard needs to act fast or Garrus is going to get his face blown off on the streets of Omega. Again. In front of her. Again.

_No fucking way._

She cuts a meaningful glance to Tali, silently congratulating herself on an excellent choice of team. Tali and Garrus have been with her long enough that they don’t need words to work together in battle.

Covering for Tali, who begins surreptitiously loading up her omnitool, Shepard takes a step forward and calls out in a carrying voice, “Woah hey now! What’s all this? We don’t want any trouble. Just trying to do a bit of shopping.” She looks to the human that Garrus is trying to strangle one handed, “It’s Christmas, after all.”

The man’s mouth works soundlessly and Shepard realizes that Garrus’s grip is a lot tighter than she’d thought, the human probably hasn’t got enough presence of mind to actually pull the trigger anymore. It’s just his buddies they have to worry about. One of whom speaks up, a hard-bitten looking woman with a prominent tattoo on her shoulder. Glancing around Shepard can see a similar tattoo on each of them. A gang. Great.

“Yeah, Christmas. Fucking Christmas. And I’d be spending it with my family, only Archangel killed most of them, didn’t he?”

Shepard goes cold. Fuck, they can’t know he’s Archangel. They can’t. Archangel was dead, that’s what the Suns were telling everyone. Oh shit.

“We’ve got nothing to do with that lady. We don’t know anything about Archangel. Take your shit elsewhere.” Shepard puts a little of her intimidating edge into her words, both to smooth the lie and to keep their attention on her and away from where Tali is now edging around to get a clear line of sight.

“Bullshit! The fucking turian is wearing his fucking symbol! Bullshit you don’t know fucking Archangel! We never seen nobody wearing that symbol except for him and his fucking gang! So you must be part of it, and we’re gonna make you fucking pay for what you did to the Shrikes!”

That throws Shepard for a second, until she looks at the arm of Garrus’s beat up blue armour and sees the bright, golden symbol there. Looks a little like a pair of wings or a bird, with two stripes above it. Fuck.

_You fucking idiot Garrus. You couldn’t peel that shit off? Paint over it?_

They still haven’t really had a chance to properly talk about what happened on Omega, and Shepard suspects that has something to do with why he insists on wearing his armour with a huge gaping hole in it. And apparently continuing to wear the symbol of his vigilante group. Whatever had happened to him here has clearly hurt him badly, and from the tiny, choked noises coming from the man he’s holding, he isn’t quite as together as he’d like her to think.

Shepard notices a small trickle of red running down into the man’s collar and realizes that they’re out of time.

All three of them act at once, and its chaos. With a crunch, Garrus closes his fist, collapsing the man’s windpipe and tossing him aside to suffocate. His omnitool is already up on his other arm, sending out an overload to fry their weapons before they have a chance to fill him full of holes. Tali flings out her omnitool at the same moment, draining their kinetic barriers for Shepard, who leaps forward, M-12 Locust chattering as she takes advantage of their shock to put five rounds into the chest of the woman who was talking.

Only half of them even have weapons levelled and none of those seem to be able to decide which target they want to hit. A harsh cough of gunfire erupts but they’re slightly too far for the shotguns to do more than graze Garrus and Shepard’s shields.

With a snarl Garrus leaps over a kiosk, pulling out his rifle and crouching to line up a shot. One of the gang members to the back of the group falls to a headshot and the rest get their shit together, lifting weapons and taking aim.

Tali spawns a drone to take some of the heat off of Shepard as the gang members start to focus on her. She levels her shotgun at the closest, the harsh bark familiar to Shepard who turns her attention to the men in front of her, confident that Tali has her flank covered.

The men with shotguns are closing quickly, they’ll be in range to do some real damage before Shepard can get through their armour with her SMG. Instead she whips up her omnitool and sends out a blast of super-cooled particles, snap-freezing the group.

She readies a throw, Tali letting off a bark of her shotgun that obliterates one of the frozen figures before she can get if off. Her amp tingles, sparks travelling down her arm as she unleashes the energy on the rest of them before they can thaw. The throw hits with the force of a charging krogan and they shatter. Chunks of frozen human scattering out across the walkway and through the nearby shops.

Shepard leaps back, ducking out of the line of fire as Garrus covers her with his Mantis, taking down two more enemies. Scanning around she notices that the rest of them seem to be hanging back.

She’s on the com immediately, suspicious of the lull, “Garrus, they’re not advancing, what’s happening?”

Garrus’s voice is tight with some supressed emotion when he responds, subvocals strangled out, “Not sure, hang on I’ll just… Oh fuck...”

“What?” Tali and Shepard both call out at once as Garrus trails off, and Shepard peeks out of cover to see what’s going on. That’s when she notices the vorcha. Oh fuck indeed.

The far end of the street is rapidly filling with vorcha, there must be close to fifty already and more arriving. The situation just got untenable.

“Run!” Shepard is already moving as she yells the order, aiming another throw over her shoulder in the general direction of the mob. Kiosks and vorcha go flying as it hits but Shepard doesn’t stop, skidding around the corner tight on the heels of Tali. Garrus is already there, covering them, his long turian legs built for sprinting.

“That vorcha has a missile launcher.” The remark is dry and completely devoid of inflection so it takes Shepard a moment to process what Garrus has just said, then her eyes go wide and she’s diving into cover, pulling Tali along with her.

“What the fuck. Who the fuck gives a vorcha a missile launcher? And what dumbass thinks it’s a good idea to let them use it in a _space station_?” Shepard forces her tone into incredulous rather than angry, hoping that if she can keep her cool then Garrus can too. He seems far too intense for Shepard’s comfort, and she can tell that Tali has noticed it too from the way she wrings her hands every time she looks at him.

When there isn’t an immediate fiery missile explosion, they take a second to breathe and then make another dash. They can hear the vorcha behind them, screeching as they scramble to catch up.

The streets of Omega aren’t like any planet-side city, or even the Citadel. Built into the asteroid in a series of spires, Omega is a three dimensional entity. It’s also incredibly old. Because of this, many shortcuts and secret ways have been formed through the station, linking places that would otherwise be difficult to navigate between. These shortcuts are the domain of locals, tourists like Shepard wouldn’t have a hope in hell of being able to remember them all, or even really recognize and distinguish one part of Omega from another. So when Garrus starts running ahead, waving them down a short, sloping passage and into a building, she doesn’t hesitate to follow him.

They sprint up a switchback staircase, four stories, and she can hear the vorcha still hot on their trail. The building is seemingly empty, but looks like it would have been a housing unit, a very shitty one. Garrus takes them down the hall to a room and starts working on the lock, calling over Tali to help.

A single locked room in an abandoned housing complex sets the hair on the back of Shepard’s neck tingling. This is some suspicious shit, but she trusts Garrus and he _has_ led them to a beautiful bottleneck.

With her two companions swearing over the lock behind her, Shepard gives a sharp grin and unslings her M-100 Grenade Launcher. It’s heavy, solid and creates mayhem wherever she points it. Shepard loves her grenade launcher.

Continued swearing from behind her, and the fastest vorcha are rounding the end of the corridor. Tech armour humming and shields full, Shepard plants herself in the middle of the hallway in front of her friends. She waits until the end of the hall has filled and the first vorcha are closing and then she fires.

A soft _thunk_ and the grenade is arcing over the closest vorcha, a few see it coming and try to scatter but the cramped quarters make that impossible. Shepard braces and the hallway explodes.

Chips of plascrete pepper her shields as the walls buckle and the celling shudders, parts of it collapsing. The vorcha are obliterated. Those who were too close have been reduced to chunks, bone and meat and sickly orange blood. Those further out, shielded from the blast by their companions, fared a little better and Shepard can see them beginning to regenerate as she watches, herself covered in a thin film of gore.

Just then there’s a sharp “Ha!” from Tali and a soft trill of victory from Garrus so Shepard turns back to them, slipping through the now-open door. As she passes them, they look back at the scene of slaughter in the hallway.

“Keelah Shepard! What did you do to them?”

Shepard is about to answer, her sharp grin still in place, but Garrus tugs her along insistently.

“There will be more, come on.”

He sounds distracted and angry and the grin wants to slide right off of her face but Shepard holds it there through sheer force of will.

“You got it Garrus, let’s move! Where are we headed?” She takes a moment to look around the room they’ve stepped into and is shocked to discover not a habitation unit, but a bridge to the next spire over. That’s… incredible.

They jog along the bridge, which is actually rather ramshackle, now that Shepard has gotten over its existence in the first place. Definitely not out of place amongst the squalid glory of Omega. Once they get to the centre, Garrus stops and glances from her to Tali.

“We need to blow this bridge.” He sounds certain, and that kind of calm that’s really just a thin coat of paint over top of something far worse.

This is really starting to freak Shepard out and she can see Tali psyching herself up to say something too. She nods to Tali, she’ll handle Garrus, then hands her the M-100.

“Here Tali, see if you can rig up some of the grenades from this with your tech-mines maybe? I need to have a chat with Garrus.” She keeps her tone friendly, but with an edge that says she means business.

Garrus looks like he wants to object but she just grabs his arm and spins him round to look at her.

“What’s going on big guy? You’ve been barely holding your shit together since those fuckers showed up. You know I’m with you, whatever you need, but you gotta fucking tell me ok. What’s up?”

Tali is crouched to their left, only a few meters away. Easily close enough to hear, since they weren’t really going for privacy, and she speaks up, “Me too Garrus. Why do you hate these guys so much?”

The comment piques Shepard’s attention, Tali could be very observant sometimes. It hadn’t occurred to Shepard that what she was seeing on Garrus was hate rather than grief, she turns back to him.

That low growl is coming off of him again, lending his words a dark, angry edge. Part of Shepard is scared, seeing her friend like this, but another part badly wants to join him.

“They fucking traffic kids Shepard. Kids. We tried to hit them, Archangel… but. Fuck. The gang has a weird structure, its human leadership and then a shitload of vorcha. You can never really take down the humans without wading through all the vorcha, and they breed them especially for it, so they’re stupid tough. There were just too many. We blew up one of their headquarters. Maybe got about a third of them? The humans I mean. Wasn’t enough. They’re still at it. I… I couldn’t help it, when we pass the com buoys I check the extranet sites they use… for advertising… I… fuck.”

He lets out a harsh keen that cuts through the growl and Shepard both. She steps forward to embrace him and Tali is already there. They pin him between them and Shepard can feel him shaking with rage.

“We’ll get them Garrus. I promise. We’ll get every last one. They won’t get away with this.” Shepard’s tone is harsh and vicious, promising all the terrible things people think her capable of, and then some.

Tali pipes up from somewhere under Garrus’s right arm, “The explosives are set, it’s a remote detonator. We should move. We’ve got a gang to take down.”

Shepard can’t help but grin victoriously as Garrus’s helpless rage morphs into determination at their words, she lets Tali tug them along, towards the other end of the bridge and suddenly, she has a brilliant idea.

Kids. They traffic kids. That’s the most fucked up thing in the galaxy as far as Shepard is concerned. You don’t fuck with kids, not ever. It’s a line that transcends species, generation, and culture. Everybody agrees, you don’t fucking do that shit to kids. Maybe this is how to bring everyone together, it’s not exactly… merry… but fuck it, they’re on a suicide mission not a pleasure cruise.

She opens the squad com to EDI and the _Normandy_.

“EDI, do you have a fix on my position?”

“Yes Shepard. How may I assist you?”

“Tell Miranda to get everyone prepped for a ground mission. Everyone EDI, I want the whole team on this one.”

“Right away Shepard, do you have any more information on the nature of the mission?”

“Yeah, yeah… uh… just patch me through to Miranda please? I’m kind of distracted here.”

“Of course, Shepard.”

There’s a brief silence, during which Shepard, Tali and Garrus are sprinting across the remainder of the bridge, and then Miranda’s cool voice sounds over Shepard’s com.

“Shepard, everyone is gathering their equipment now, what’s happening?”

“Found some old friends of Garrus’s while we were out shopping. Real shitstains.” A snort from Garrus, “We’re gonna go ruin their Christmas. I want everyone split into fire teams, you’ll lead one with Grunt, Zaeed and Samara. Jacob will lead the other with Jack, Mordin and Legion. I want Thane and Kasumi to shadow us and provide recon. Understood?”

There’s a muffled explosion from the far end of the bridge, the vorcha have breached the door. Garrus and Shepard exchange a look, they’re still at least 200 meters from the other end. They begin to pick up the pace as Miranda answers.

“Of course Commander, are you in trouble? I heard an explosion.”

“We’re fine Miranda… and you’re about… to hear a bigger one!” Shepard pants, running hard for the end of the bridge.

Tali cuts in, “No she won’t Shepard, there’s no sound in space! Keelah, where did you go to school?”

Garrus can no longer contain himself at that and has to slow down, he’s laughing so hard. They’ve made it to the end of the bridge in any case so Shepard palms the lock, which opens from the inside easily, and drags him through.

Tali begins sealing the door behind them and then cuts a hesitant, fearful glance across at them. Shepard is reminded of how young she is, and is about to give her the go-ahead when Garrus reaches across and activates the detonator for her.

“I could have done it Garrus.” But she doesn’t really sound like she believes it.

There’s a shudder through the building and a rumble through the floor as the bridge is blasted away, and then silence.

Garrus pats Tali’s arm, “Yeah… I know… but you don’t have to Tali. It’s ok…” he turns to Shepard, “Where are we meeting the others?”

The question is half directed to Miranda and half to her, so Shepard answers, “EDI knows where we are Miranda, get her to find a decent rendezvous between us, send me the location and meet us there ASAP, yeah?”

“Sending the coordinates now Commander. We’ll meet you there in thirty minutes.”

Shepard spares a brief moment to appreciate how easy the combined efficiency of Miranda and EDI makes her life and then sets the nav point on her omnitool. Sending Miranda a few more details at the same time.

They set out, Garrus taking them through back ways to limit the amount of people who might see them, especially with Shepard still coated in a layer of vorcha.

She’s a lot less worried about him now, Garrus is a turian-of-action and giving him a definite goal is the best way to pull him out of a destructive spiral. He still has that focused intensity to him, but he’s holding it together and laughing with them now so she thinks he’s probably going to be ok.

Tali is still looking a little shaken and Shepard mentally kicks herself. Blowing up a bridge and spacing a whole lot of vorcha is not something she should have delegated. Tali is brilliant and fierce but she’s also young and hasn’t been trained and hardened like Garrus and herself. That innocence is what Shepard loves about her, she almost represents that part of the galaxy that they’re fighting for, and forcing her into that situation was stupid. She is so damn lucky that Garrus was onto it enough to push the button himself.

_Get your shit together Shepard. Protecting your friends isn’t just about combat tactics, you need to remember their limits too._

The rest of the team is already at the rendezvous when they arrive. EDI chose another of the ubiquitous abandoned housing complexes that dot Omega and there’s plenty of space on the ground floor for them to spread out with their equipment and plan their assault.

Shepard is pleased to see that everyone has turned up with a minimum of fuss. She has a great crew, but they’re all individuals, not used to working as a team. Getting them to cooperate is often a challenge, especially with her insistence that the Cerberus humans take a leadership role. That part Shepard could do without, she’d much rather delegate leadership to someone she trusts, like Garrus, but since Garrus is coming with her she’ll just have to give Miranda and Jacob a shot. It isn’t ideal, but nobody else has experience working with others, except perhaps Zaeed, but Shepard has listened to enough of his stories to know what a bad idea that would be.

It isn’t Miranda’s leadership ability she’s worried about, specifically. The woman is the definition of capable, and Shepard has juggled the teams to keep Jack away from her, so the personal drama should be minimal. She’ll likely do fine. Zaeed will follow orders as well as he always does, and Samara will follow Miranda’s lead if Shepard asks her to, same with Grunt – though the asking will go somewhat differently. Her concerns for Miranda are more focused on her ability to adapt rapidly to a volatile combat situation, however capable she might be, Miranda is not a trained soldier.

Jacob on the other hand… Shepard hasn’t had much of a chance to get to know the guy. Maybe if they’d gone to check out that distress call for him she’d know a bit more about the man, but they haven’t gotten around to it yet and Jacob still feels like an unknown element. He has a difficult team to lead too, Jack is always volatile and getting her to follow Cerberus direction is dicey at best. Then there are Mordin and Legion. Both of them are incredibly intelligent, they tend to question orders, suggest alternate plans and generally not act at all like good soldiers. She hopes Jacob can handle it.

In some ways, finding this gang of utter scum is a blessing. A dry run for the collector base, seeing who can work together, who can step up. Shepard is not above using these people as a testing ground for her squads, though she’ll be keeping those thoughts to herself – especially around Garrus, who seems to be taking their continued existence very personally.

As Shepard and her squad enter the building, the chatter dies and all attention is focused on them. She waves Garrus and Tali off to go grab something to eat and drink and stalks into the centre of the room where Jacob and Miranda are waiting for her – alert and full of that helpful energy that sometimes puts her teeth on edge. Their eagerness to please isn’t pissing her off today though, no, today she’s going to squeeze them for everything they’ve got.

“Miranda, Jacob.” She nods to them, “Get here ok? No trouble from the team?”

Miranda is the one to speak, as Shepard had known she would be. Jacob always follows her lead, a useful lever, if she ever needs it.

“No trouble Commander, we took a shuttle to the roof and came down from there, it’s still waiting for us if we need it.”

“Good.” She looks at them both carefully, alert to signs of discomfort they may be trying to hide from her, “Any concerns about your squads? Now’s the time to speak up.”

Miranda looks to the side, considering, but Jacob just stares back, calm as you please. “Not really, Commander. This is the kind of op that lets people put aside their personal bullshit, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble. Except maybe with Legion, don’t know if geth really have the uh… empathy… to be properly on-board for this kind of thing.”

Shepard cocks one eyebrow but says nothing, it’s a fair call from someone who’s never really spoken to Legion before, and something Shepard doesn’t know herself. She’ll have a chat with the geth before they move out. “Good to hear Jacob, go make sure everyone has enough thermal clips and extra water and rations.”

He salutes smartly and heads off, leaving Shepard alone with Miranda.

“What seems to be the trouble, Miss Lawson?”

Miranda’s lips quirk at Shepard’s faux-formal tone, “Nothing life threatening Commander, and thank you for your discretion. I think, perhaps, that my team would work best if you were to speak with them about following my lead. I can certainly manage, but in the interests of a smooth operation…”

She trails off and in that slightly hesitant silence Shepard reads volumes. Helping Miranda reconnect with her sister was possibly one of the most rewarding missions she’s been on in the last few months. The new level of trust that the operative has in her has made everything much easier. No more hiding behind false perfection and a need to be independent. With Miranda feeling comfortable enough to ask for help, there’s not a lot they can’t handle.

“I agree Miranda, I’ll speak to both Grunt and Samara before we move on anything. I assume Zaeed is not a concern?”

“He is not, Commander. Thank you, I… appreciate the responsibility you are giving me.”

Shepard gives her a razor-sharp smile, “It’s not a favour Lawson, you’ve earned this chance. Now you’ve just gotta prove you can handle it.”

Miranda lifts her chin proudly, eyes full of that cold determination that used to scare the crap out of Shepard, but now just gives her a twist of satisfaction. Miranda is Shepard’s now, she might not fully know it yet, but the Illusive Man is no longer who Miranda looks to. Shepard _wins_ , asshole.

Her voice is strong when she answers, “Absolutely Commander, your trust is not misplaced.”

Shepard’s smile softens a little, “I know Miranda. Grab Garrus, he knows who we’re up against and will be in charge of our tactics, set him up with whatever maps EDI can pull for us and we’ll start hashing out a plan once I’ve spoken to everyone.”

A tight little nod and Miranda is away.

Shepard heads over to the end of the room commandeered by Jacob’s squad first. Jack is lounging on a crate of thermal clips, tossing one in the air idly. Mordin and Legion are bent to examine something on Mordin’s omnitool, speaking rapidly.

Shepard heads over to sit down next to Jack, who turns to her with her nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Jesus Shepard, you stink like dead shit. Fuck. That is so gross.”

“Nice to see you too Jack. It’s vorcha. You know what we’re up against here?”

Jack catches the clip and shoves it into one of the pockets on her pants as she leaps off the crate to start pacing.

“Yeah, fucking slavers that take little fucking kids and sell ‘em. Fuckers need a bullet. It was people just like this… like these… that grabbed me, ‘n all the other kids in that fucking place… we’re gonna finish this, right Shepard? All of them. Every last fucking one. Promise me!” As she speaks her movements get jerkier and her voice takes on a slightly ragged edge, her demand flung out like a punch – eyes flaring with hope and defiance. She’s giving Shepard the opportunity to say no, to let her down – just so she can feel the high when Shepard doesn’t.

Shepard trains her gaze on Jack, where she’s pacing relentlessly. She keeps her voice steady, but allows all the rage she’s feeling to give it a harsh, biting edge, “I promise. We’re going to finish this. Garrus tried, before, but he didn’t have enough people I don’t think. Well we have enough now, and we have more than enough motivation. They’re not getting away with this.”

Pragia had been enlightening for Shepard, just as it had been cathartic for Jack. Shepard knew Jack now, knew what drove her, what moved her. Knew how to use that. She’d been right on the edge with Aresh, torn between killing him and letting him go. It had been Shepard’s words, her validation of Jack’s rage, which had nudged her over and put a hole in Aresh’s skull. They both knew it, knew where they stood. Jack knew that she could trust Shepard not to hold her back when it mattered, and Shepard knew that Jack was able and willing to follow her lead and pick her targets. It was, Shepard thought, a beautiful friendship.

Jack stops pacing, her nervous energy contained for the moment, she glances sideways at Shepard, “Good.” Hopping back up onto the crate she starts checking over her Evicerator absently, “Fuck, you people take your time with this shit… let me know when stuff starts happening.”

Shepard hops off the crate, “Yeah, shouldn’t be long, make sure you grab enough clips and get some water and energy bars off of Jacob.”

“Whatever, mom.” But there’s a hint of a smile on her face, even as she rolls her eyes, so Shepard moves over to where Mordin and Legion are still in conference.

“…causes permanent damage. Not seen in overload on synthetics. Not the same. Not the same at all.” Mordin was saying, his speech its usual rapid-fire.

The little mobile plates around Legion’s optical sensor flutter lightly, and Shepard can’t help but wonder why that happens. It seems analogous to a facial expression, but geth don’t need facial expressions to communicate, and if it’s for organics then shouldn’t the little flutters be easier to interpret? As it is, Shepard has no idea if the motion means Legion is frustrated, interested, confused… they could be one sentence away from shutting Mordin up permanently and Shepard wouldn’t have the faintest clue.

Happily, that doesn’t seem to be the case, as Legion stops mid-reply, some halting explanation of cumulative runtime errors caused by repeated short-circuiting in the geth’s targeting systems, and turns to Shepard as she stops in front of them.

“Shepard-Commander,” a flutter of little plates, “We are conferring with Doctor-Solas regarding potential similarities between a neural shock to organics, and the effects of overload on synthetics.”

Mordin shakes his head blinking rapidly, “Runtime errors flushed with soft-reset. Not an option in organics. The analogy is imprecise.”

Shepard quirks a smile, of all the unlikely friendships within the Normandy crew, this has got to be one of her favourites. This is the fourth time now that she’s caught them conversing rapidly about the differences and similarities between organic and synthetic life. It’s fantastic, and she’s almost sorry to interrupt, but they have a mission, and now is not the time.

“I see, that’s very interesting Legion, but we have a mission to prepare for and there is something I’d like to discuss with you.”

Legion’s little face plates flutter again and Shepard takes that for acknowledgement so she turns to Mordin.

“Mordin, you’ve been briefed? There might be children where we’re headed. I’ll have Kasumi and Thane keeping an eye out but I need you to be ready if any of them are injured or…” she trails off, not sure how, exactly, to frame what she wants to say.

Luckily, Mordin is every bit as ruthlessly pragmatic as she could hope for, “Yes, have medical supplies. Sedatives too. Will not allow children to come to harm, either by the gang’s actions or their own. Not to worry Shepard, am prepared.” He gives a long, slow blink, which Shepard has, by exhaustive trial and error, discovered is his version of a wink.

She grins. “I can always count on you Mordin. You’ve got enough clips? Food? Water? Jacob should be handing stuff out.”

Mordin shakes his head lightly, “Medical kit heavy, cannot carry anything more than absolutely necessary. Medical supplies much more necessary than food and water.” His smile is downright cheeky, but with that edge that she recognizes from his clinic. Mordin is not here to mess around, there are children to save and he’s willing to climb over a pile of slaver’s corpses to do it.

Legion bounces slightly, faceplates fluttering rapidly and Shepard turns to face them, “What is it Legion?”

“Shepard-Commander, we are on Doctor-Solas’s fire team, we will be in close proximity and can carry excess equipment, if necessary.”

“Thank you Legion, that’s a good idea, Mordin will give you a pack with some spare clips for both of you, as well as food and water for him,” she turns to Mordin to confirm, getting a sharp nod in return before Mordin stalks off to gather their things, “there was something else I wanted to talk about though.”

Legion stares at her, silent and immobile. They’re going for attentive, but the unnatural stillness of the synthetic body comes off a little creepy.

“Legion, do the geth understand the organic concept of a ‘child’, and our attachment to them?” This is important, it’s motivation and she needs Legion to understand, if not empathise.

“We are aware of the concept, organic reproduction produces children, in this way your species survives into the future. You are attached to this concept of a future for your kind, this motivates you to protect children you otherwise have no genetic connection to.”

The explanation is… decent. Shepard remembers the conversation they had when Legion first came aboard, about the geth wanting to build their own future, and the Reapers taking that away from them, and she thinks perhaps Legion does understand, in their own way.

“More or less, yeah. Children are our future, organics’ future, which we have to defend from every awful thing in the galaxy. It’s one of the few things all organics agree on. So everyone here is very motivated to protect these kids and they’re really, _really_ angry at the people who hurt them.”

Talking to Legion is very therapeutic, it forces Shepard to strip her words of emotion, laying things back to the bare facts. Trying to explain things to the geth always helps her to settle things in her own mind and stops her from thinking in circles, she hopes they similarly enjoy talking to her.

“We understand, Shepard-Commander. Normandy has been agitated since you brought news of this mission.”

“Alright then. Good talk. You just stick close to Mordin and follow what Jacob tells you.” And with that she leaves them to whatever it is they do before a mission. Building a consensus, more than likely.

On her way across the room to where Miranda’s team is waiting, she spots Thane sitting quietly, pressed into a corner where he can observe the whole room at once. She detours next to him and lowers herself down, taking a few moments of quiet for herself. Thane has a very calming presence.

Not too many moments, though, they have things to do after all. She keeps her voice low, preserving as much of the silence as she can, “Any thoughts you’d like to share, Thane?”

He dips his head towards her slightly and murmurs back, the edges of his words blurred in the rasp of his voice, “Nothing you have not already noted, I am sure. You have known Garrus far longer than I, so I will not presume to speak of his anger or grief as if you are not familiar with them. I will simply say that I am concerned.”

Shepard sighs, Thane is very perceptive and she’s noticed the growing friendship between the two snipers. It’s completely reasonable for Thane to be concerned, it’s also not Shepard’s place to talk about Garrus’s issues.

She’s about to frame some kind of polite evasion when Thane lightly touches her forearm halting her train of thought, “No, do not bother, I know you cannot speak for him. I was not prying, I am simply telling you that you are not alone in your concern for him.”

Shepard laughs a little, clearly she is not as subtle or clever as she would like to think she is. “Thanks Thane, that means a lot. Be careful out there ok? I hate sending you out without backup but, well… none of us can do what you do, and I need you to be my eyes.”

Thane smiles, “This is not the place of my death, Siha, these slavers are nothing. Our true mission is yet to come, and I intend to be there for it.” He closes his eyes, posture relaxed and Shepard knows she’s been dismissed.

This is always the way with Thane. She’d call it selfish, the way she speaks to him only on his own terms, but she knows better. Thane does not have space for people he does not care for. Part of it is likely that he’s dying, and with that knowledge comes the freedom to ruthlessly prioritize your own happiness over the comfort of people you dislike, but most of it is simply who Thane is. His attention is a resource that he spends only on those who have earned it. That she merits his time is an honour, and it is his right to decide when that time is up.

It works for them, Shepard never feels like she’s imposing on Thane because he is clearly capable of managing that shit himself. It’s freeing, to not have to worry if she’s using her admittedly strong personality to bully someone into spending time with her.

Leaving Thane to his meditation – or possibly prayer, Shepard isn’t too sure – she continues over to where Samara is keeping an eye on Zaeed and Grunt. Zaeed is relaying another of his improbable stories, from the look of his arm motions, a fairly dramatic one. Grunt is a sucker for stories of all kinds. What he loves about them, craves the most, Shepard thinks, is _context_. Something that’s absent from his imprinted memories. Zaeed isn’t one to turn down a willing audience to his bullshit so this has become a familiar sight on the _Normandy_ : the old mercenary spinning his tale and the krogan sitting in rapt silence, enthralled. It’s completely adorable and Shepard is committed to never, ever letting either of them know it.

She passes Jacob, heading over to his squad with the clips, water and food, having finished distributing them out to Miranda’s squad. He’s hauling a crate of water bottles under one arm, and a crate of thermal clips under the other, a box of energy bars balanced on top of it. It’s subtle, but not quite subtle enough so Shepard pauses in her forward movement and waits. Three seconds, five… ten… a shimmer off to her right and Shepard mentally adds one to the running total for her favourite game: “Kasumi is Predictable and Jacob is Doing This On Purpose” it’s called, and so far the tally is up to twelve separate instances of Jacob oh-so-subtly showing off, followed by Kasumi oh-so-coincidentally turning up.

 _We have fun on the_ Normandy _._

She waits for Kasumi to speak first, not wanting to give away that she knows what’s up. She doesn’t have to wait long for the shimmer to circle around her and Kasumi to appear at her left shoulder.

_Oh! I am so surprised!_

“Hey Shep! Stopped to admire the view?” Kasumi’s hood shadows her eyes, but Shepard can _feel_ her waggling her eyebrows.

“You know me Kasumi, I could totally do this whole Collector thing myself – clearly you’re all just here as eye candy.”

Kasumi gives a bright, joyful laugh and Shepard drinks it in. Kasumi is possibly the happiest, most carefree person Shepard knows and she loves her dearly.

“Sure Shep, sure. You taking on the Collectors yourself, I’d give you oh… five minutes? Maybe ten, you are a wizard with that grenade launcher.”

Shepard lets her face adopt a dreamy expression, “Ah my beautiful grenade launcher, you know I’d marry it if that were legal, right?” her grin shifts from dreamy to a disturbing leer as she waggles her own eyebrows.

Once Kasumi’s giggles have subsided, Shepard lets her face and tone turn a little more serious, “Kasumi… I actually have something to ask you. A favour… I think you’ll approve.”

“Well, well, well, Shep. Colour me intrigued! What do you need me to do?”

“You and Thane are on recon, scouting ahead. What I’d like you to do, while you’re there, is see if you can hack one of their terminals, maybe get a hold of their financial records… maybe redistribute a little of those finances. After all, if this goes well we’ll likely have a few scared, traumatized kids that’ll need specialized care. And much as I _love_ making the Illusive Man pay for shit he didn’t agree to, it would be poetic justice to make the slavers pay for it, don’t you think?” She also thinks it would be something that would appeal to Garrus, he’s always been rather fond of karmic retribution.

Kasumi gives a wicked grin that has Shepard wanting to reflexively hang on to her valuables, _just in case_ , and claps her hands with delight, “Oh that’s devious, I love it! Count me in Shep!”

“Great! Glad to hear it. Just be careful out there ok? We’ll try and be as amazingly distracting as possible, but I don’t want you taking any unnecessary risks.”

Kasumi shakes her head lightly, “Don’t you worry about me Shep. They’ll never even know I was there. It’s you who should be worried! You’re the one they’ll be shooting at!”

Shepard quirks a self-depreciating smile, “Yeah, lucky me. You should go catch up to Jacob, get some clips, food, water. Make sure you’re ready to go.” Shepard’s poker face is fantastic, it’s the best. Nobody can beat her.

Kasumi perks up a little and disappears, Shepard waits a full fifteen seconds before grinning to herself, _just in case_.

She continues on her way across the room. Zaeed has finished his story and is watching, grinning, while Grunt acts out his favourite parts. Shepard sidles up to Samara, who’s watching them serenely.

“Samara.”

“Hello Shepard.”

They stand in silence for a bit, watching Grunt.

“You’re happy following Miranda’s lead on this one?”

“I am, Commander. You have placed her in command and I accept your judgement.”

This is good, Shepard wasn’t really worried, per se, but she’s had disagreements with the Justicar in the past. It’s always a good idea to make sure.

“I am pleasantly surprised by your commitment to eradicating these criminals Shepard.”

_Uh oh. Don’t bite. Don’t bite. Don’t bite. Ah… hell… who am I kidding?_

“Surprised, Samara? I eradicate a lot of criminals, I would think it would be rather in character of me at this point.”

“Perhaps, but usually you do not put in quite this amount of effort. Indeed, someone perceptive might even come to the conclusion that you have some ulterior motive.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” This was a lie.

“Don’t lie to me Shepard, it is pointless. You’re doing this to try and bring Garrus closure. This is not about justice to you is it? It is only revenge. Revenge does no honour to the victims of these criminals, Shepard.”

“Fine, sure. My best friend is in pain and I saw how I could help him, do some good in the galaxy, and get the team working together, all in one fell swoop! I’d say that deserves congratulations, not condemnation. You want to nitpick that I’m not doing it for the right reasons? Does it matter? I’m doing it, kids are going to be saved. And if motivations really matter then we’re still good because you’re doing it for the right reasons, and Miranda, Jacob, Kasumi, Thane, Mordin, Tali, they’re all doing it for the right reasons.”

“What they, and I, are doing is not the issue here. It is your motivations that are suspect, your conscience that will suffer if you exploit these children to further your own goals. You are saving them because it is convenient to you to do so. If it were not, you would not bother.”

The civil tone that Shepard is struggling to keep hold of shatters, and she’s suddenly furious.

“Convenient? You think watching my friend torment himself over a wrong he tried and failed to right is _convenient_ to me? If it weren’t for Garrus and his _despicable_ revenge we wouldn’t even know there were children to save! What would you have me do? Search for evil in every corner of the galaxy? Forever? There’s always something! I found this, I can fix _this_!”

Samara sighs, and suddenly every day of her nearly one thousand year life seems to weigh down on her, bend her, try and force her to break. Shepard can see it, but right now she’s just too angry to care.

“Yes Shepard. That is precisely what you should do. And yes, it is impossible. I know. But we can still strive for it. There is no wisdom to be found in stagnating in our own faults.”

“I can’t Samara, I can’t care about them all. It’ll break me. It’s broken you, you just don’t see it.”

“Of course I do Shepard.”

The blunt statement strikes like a punch to the gut and Shepard’s anger evaporates. Suddenly she wants to cry. Samara and her stupid, impossible ideals. It is an inevitability that whenever Shepard speaks with Samara she comes away feeling small, and flawed and _human_. Every time, it hurts, and every time she comes away wanting to do better, _be_ better.

Too bad it never sticks.

Shepard has always been a fan of ruthless pragmatism. Her mother is the same – no room for high-minded ideals when you’re down in the mud making the hard choices – that’s what she’d say, generally whenever Shepard would try and argue her way out of something using _the principle of the matter_.

A lifetime of choosing the practical option isn’t going to be broken by a few months association with the galaxy’s most dedicated law bringer. Even if she has the supernatural ability to make Shepard feel like shit just for breathing without trying to save somebody.

She’d try again, today, and she’d fail again, today. And eventually she would fail badly enough for Samara to make good on her threat and come for Shepard once the dust had settled and the Collectors were done. If they survived. The thought was a bleak one, and Shepard has no time for maudlin. There are children to save, and Shepard is going to save them, even if she is getting something else out of it too.

“I… I’m sorry Samara… I didn’t mean… Fuck. Shit, sorry… ugh.” Hands pressed over her face, Shepard mumbles through her fingers, embarrassed and sad and still a little angry.

Samara presses one cool hand to her arm, “It’s alright Shepard. You’ll try again.”

At that Shepard does give a tiny, choked sob, quickly swallowed as she presses the heels of her palms to her eyes. Samara moves away slightly, settling down to meditate while she waits. She looks serene again, like nothing has happened. Shepard feels sick.

She needs a few moments to collect herself before tackling either Grunt or Zaeed and glances around the room to see how preparations are going. Jacob has finished his rounds and is sitting with his squad, listening to Jack. Shepard can’t imagine what they might be talking about, but Jack looks animated and Jacob is smiling so it can’t be too terrible.

Thane is still in his corner, to all outwards appearances asleep. He’s not, but good luck telling the difference.

Kasumi is nowhere to be seen, as expected.

Tali has also moved over towards Jacob’s squad and has joined Mordin and Legion in discussion. Watching Tali and Legion interact never fails to make Shepard feel better. That was a positive change in the galaxy that she did, a quarian and a geth, friends. Yeah, she had to yell a bit to get them there, and yeah, maybe a few threats were involved that may not have, strictly speaking, been totally necessary. But this was important, and beautiful, and damn it she was allowed to feel proud of it!

She looks across to where Garrus and Miranda are poring over maps and scans that EDI is providing for them. Miranda looks calm, focused, professional. But Garrus… Garrus looks haunted. She can see the way the tension is coiled through his cowl, hunching his shoulders. He’s gripping the edge of the table hard and Shepard suspects there will be dents when he finally lets go. Seeing what this gang’s continued existence is doing to him fills Shepard with rage and determination. Whatever plan they end up going with, she hopes she gets to take out as many of them as possible herself.

Her anger on Garrus’s behalf burns up the last traces of recrimination and self-loathing from her talk with Samara, leaving her focused, angry and with a very itchy trigger finger.

She takes a deep breath and turns to Grunt to continue her rounds, he’s still sitting with Zaeed, so she takes a spot on a crate next to them.

“Grunt, Massani.”

From both of them, “Shepard.”

“Grunt, you ready to kick some ass?”

“Finally. All this waiting around is boring Shepard. We need to get moving. I hear there’s a whole pack of vorcha between us and the humans. Humans are so weak and squishy, but vorcha are tough, they regenerate – not as good as krogan, but I’m not picky. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Yeah alright Grunt, you just watch who you’re calling ‘weak and squishy’.”

Grunt gives a snort, “I said humans. Not my Battlemaster. Different thing, Shepard.”

Somehow, despite his truly abysmal logic, Shepard feels all warm and fuzzy inside. There’s something about Grunt, despite his size, and obviously lethal capacity that makes Shepard feel almost… _parental_ towards him. She’d never _mother_ the krogan: that would be insulting. But she gets the distinct impression that being his Battlemaster is kind of the equivalent. She provides direction, sets limits and helps Grunt define the shape of his life’s path.

In a lot of ways being a Battlemaster is the same as having a command in the Alliance, doesn’t matter how she feels, she still has to get up every day and do what needs to be done. It’s something she’s been doing for years now and Shepard is very comfortable under her burden of responsibility. Just as well since it isn’t getting any lighter.

She gives Grunt an affectionate punch to the shoulder, “Whatever you say Grunt, you’re going to be following Miranda’s lead on this one ok? Her squad needs you to be their heavy centre, think you can handle it?”

“Heh. Of course I can Shepard, I’m Urdnot. If they think they can get through me they’re in for a surprise.”

“Good. Glad to hear it.”

She turns to Zaeed, who’s leaning back against a crate with his eyes half-lidded, looking bored, “You ever heard of these assholes, Massani? The Shrikes?”

“Can’t say I have, no. Must be new. Or small. S’a weird thing with the vorcha though. Not many ‘sides krogan ever have much use for ‘em. Too much trouble y’see, they die too quick, bad for turnover.”

“Yeah? It is pretty unusual. Any suggestions for how we might handle this?”

Zaeed snorts, “Kill the fuckers. S’about all there is to it, right? Maybe send in that sneaky fucker, Krios, see if they got any kids where they’re at, and if not just fucking bomb the place. If there are any s’gonna be a shit-fight though.”

“That’s about what I’d come up with too, Garrus seems to think they have at least two points of operation, so we’ll have to hit both to be sure.”

“Yeah, sounds right for that kind of operation, you’ll want to hit them quick though. If you give ‘em any time between they’ll kill the kids rather than let you have ‘em.”

“Fuck. Yeah. You’re right, they will. We can’t let that happen. Ok, I’ve got a few things to do, but we’ll want to gather up by the holomap in a few minutes and see if we can’t hash out a decent strategy. Gear yourselves up and meet me there in five.”

Zaeed nods and starts stuffing spare clips into a small bag.

Shepard heads off to where Tali is still chatting with Mordin and Legion, halfway across the room she manages to catch Tali’s attention and gives her a subtle jerk of her chin. Excusing herself from her conversation, Tali hurries over.

“Shepard! Everything going ok?”

“Yeah, yeah… just wanted to check in before we do this. And apologize, I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that at the bridge… that kind of stuff… that’s for me and Garrus… you don’t have to… yeah. You know what I mean.” Shepard ducks her head, unwilling to meet Tali’s eye.

Despite all her time knowing Tali, she still can’t reconcile her feelings about getting a mission done, and not involving Tali in anything terrible. She’s never really bothered with anyone else, except maybe Liara back when she was still around. Most people Shepard interacts with are soldiers, or, mercenaries now… she supposes… but in any case they’re hard people used to making tough choices. And maybe they don’t always agree with Shepard’s methods, or goals, but they understand the _idea_. Tali… well maybe she does, but a part of Shepard doesn’t _want_ her to.

And there she does again, with her damn patronizing. Tali may be young but she’s an adult, she finished her pilgrimage and was accepted onto the _Neema_ , that’s what her people consider adulthood and Shepard has absolutely no right to gainsay it. Honestly this whole thing is a mess that Shepard doesn’t feel qualified to sort out.

Luckily Tali is much smarter than Shepard, and can come to her rescue, “I know Shepard, its fine. I… I might not like what you do sometimes… Garrus too… well… most of you actually… but I get it. I wish I didn’t but I do. You don’t have to protect me from tough decisions, I’m quarian, we understand sacrifices Shepard.”

That last is just a touch accusing and Shepard winces, she deserves that.

“Yeah… yeah I know. I’m an asshole. I’m sorry Tali. Fuck… I uh… wanted to ask you to come with me and Garrus, rather than one of the other squads. It’ll be really dangerous, likely, but I think maybe he’s not really ok and I’m shit at this and I need your help.”

Tali huffs a little, but the set of her shoulders is pleased, “Yeah, you are. And yeah, you do need my help. Glad you realize it. We’ll handle it Shepard, between the two of us we can stop him from doing anything unreasonably stupid, probably.”

Shepard grins, “Pfft. Garrus, do something stupid? He would never.”

Tali laughs at this and Shepard takes the distraction to give her a quick hug, “I’m sorry Tali, I really am. But hey, we’re gonna save some kids, that’s pretty good right?”

Tali pushes lightly against Shepards hold, “You’re impossible Shepard. But yeah, we are. Thanks for trusting me.”

Now its Shepards turn to laugh as she lets Tali go, “Are you kidding me? You’ve earned that a hundred times over, I should thank _you_ for trusting _me_. Everything I’ve done? I honestly wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d told me to stick it up my own ass on Haestrom. I’m glad you didn’t, but still.”

“Well, I reserve the right to change my mind. Now go plan us a mission, commander.”

Shepard throws Tali a mock salute and heads off to meet Garrus and Miranda around the holomap. When she arrives Garrus barely glances up at her, his expression is closed, mandibles pulled in tight.

“Commander. I have a few ideas for how to tackle this base, EDI got us a few maps of the area but they’re not very detailed. We’ll have to send Thane in to get a better picture before we can plan anything in detail…”

Shepard interrupts him, laying a hand on his arm “Garrus.”

His talons spasm a little, clenching into the table. Miranda looks between them for a second then leaves without a word.

Garrus continues, voice flat, “They have a ship as well, a mobile base as their second point of operation. We’ll have to hit it quickly once we’ve taken out the base here…”

“Garrus, look at me.” She moves her hand from his arm to the injured side of his face, flaking off the dried trail of blood with her thumb.

He flinches a little but doesn’t pull away, nor does he look up, “Please Shepard… I just want to get this over with.”

“I know Garrus, we will. I promised. Everyone is on board, we’re going to do this, but I’m worried about you, and so are others. You’re my sniper Garrus, I need you to be able to do what you do. You can’t do that if you’re so angry your hands are shaking.”

Garrus lets out a shaky breath that sounds more like a growl and relaxes his hold on the table. The tension doesn’t leave his shoulders though as he turns to her, “I can’t Shepard, I can’t just… relax and pretend it’s any other mission. I won’t miss, you don’t have to worry about that. But… don’t force me to pretend everything’s fine.”

“No! No, fuck no. That’s not what I meant! I know you’re angry, you should be. Absolutely. Just… trust us ok? We’re going to get them. Not maybe, not ‘we’ll try our best’, nah. Fuck that. We’re _going to do it_. So just… don’t beat yourself up trying to hate these guys enough for all of us, we all hate them too, we all want to take them down. You’re not alone Garrus, and this isn’t just your mess.” Shepard steps close, resting her forehead against his browplate for a moment before pulling back. “So. Show me what you’ve come up with, big guy.”

Garrus gives an embarrassed cough, neck flushed blue again, as he fumbles with his omnitool to pull up the relevant maps. Sufficiently distracted, his shoulders relax as he finally finds the right one.

He’s just about to start when Shepard holds up a hand, “Hang on, no sense doing this twice.” she lets out a piercing whistle and everyone turns to face her, “Gather round losers, it’s time.”

Garrus gives her a totally unimpressed look as everyone starts heading over and she shrugs, giving him an affectionate punch to the shoulder, “Whatever Garrus. You know you love me.”

This gets him stuttering again, honestly he’s way too easy, and by the time he recovers the team has assembled around them.

Miranda catches Shepard’s eye questioningly so Shepard flashes her a smile. _Everything’s fine_. This earns her a raised, disbelieving eyebrow, which Shepard feels is totally underserved, but she lets it go.

“Alright, sorry to make you wait. Garrus is going to walk us through what we know. You know your teams, Miranda, you’re team Bravo…”

A snort from Jack, “More like team Princess.”

Miranda valiantly holds her neutral expression, though her eye twitches a little. Normally Shepard would step in, but Zaeed looks so utterly offended that she just can’t. She chuckles, “Right. Team Princess, obviously…”

“Shepard has team Battlemaster!” Grunt’s booming shout is way too loud in the small space but Shepard can’t help but grin widely.

“Thanks Grunt. Yes I do. Anyway, Miranda…”

“Shepard-Commander. I believe this fire team should also be named appropriately. We are named third, therefore, logically, we are team three.”

At Legions interruption, Shepard can’t hold it in any longer and doubles over laughing. Jack is also losing it and several of the others are chuckling.

“Holy shit Legion. You are fucking amazing!” Jack exclaims, attempting to give the geth a high five. It takes a few tries, but Legion eventually catches on, leading to quite a lot of pained swearing on Jack’s part.

“Wow. Ok. We good? We done?” Shepard looks around at everyone, and when no more smart comments are forthcoming, turns to Garrus, “All yours buddy.”

Garrus clears his throat and gestures over the holomap being projected from his omnitool, “Hrmm… yes… ok… EDI did a few scans, nothing too detailed since we don’t want to piss off all of Omega, but we’ve used them to correct what few maps we managed to pull. From what… uh… Archangel found they have a base up near the uh… asteroid-end of this spire here,” he gesture’s with one talon to a spire off to the side, slightly further from the main bulk of Omega than where they are now, “based off of the scan we’re looking at a large, open space. It’ll be old mining tunnels and catwalks up there. No cover. Likely they’re actual base is one of the complexes set up for the miners. They’re basically like habitation units. Mess and offices, that kind of thing. The whole thing will be a big plascrete cube, probably not many points of entry.”

Miranda leans over, tracing a finger along an area just next to where Garrus is pointing, “This area here seems to have an unusual thermal signature, what do you suppose is there?”

Garrus makes a face, “Vorcha. That’s where they keep them.”

Zaeed laughs hollowly, “Oh, bloody brilliant. We so much as fart and we’ll have a whole shitload of vorcha crawling up our arses.”

Shepard chews her lip, considering, “Ok so what that tells me is that we need a distraction team to handle the vorcha while the others hit the base. And obviously that distraction team needs a fucking excellent exit strategy. I’ll take my team out there, Miranda and Jacob can handle storming the base. But, like I said. Exit strategy.”

Thane places a hand on the table, drawing her attention, “Once I have completed my reconnaissance and we have determined the details of the layout I can attempt to find a route for you to escape, commander. Perhaps with the aid of a shuttle, these tunnels here,” He traces a finger along some of the old mining tunnels, “seem large enough that we would not be in undue danger of being shot down.”

Shepard grins, glancing sideways at Garrus, “Yeah, good plan Thane. The vorcha do have at least one missile launcher so we don’t want to get caught in a tight tunnel.”

Tali and Garrus are both giving her very unimpressed looks so Shepard plants her hands firmly on the table, leaning forward, “Right! Yes. Ok, so this is what we’re up against. We’ll take a shuttle in as close as we can get without being seen, EDI?” A blue dot appears on the map near where they want to go, “Excellent. We’ll head there and let Thane and Kasumi go off to confirm everything. Once we know the layout I want Team Princess on one entrance,” there’s a few giggles at this, “and Team Three on the other. Team Battlemaster will take a position on the catwalks where we will do our very best to be distracting as hell. Questions?”

Nobody says anything for a little while so Shepard gives a decisive nod, “These fuckers take little kids and sell them to whoever can pay. They’re monsters and it’s our responsibility to stop them. We’re here to take them out, but we’re also here to save the kids. If you see any, be careful, call for Mordin and keep them safe. Thane, once you’ve sorted out our exit strategy I want you and Kasumi watching for runners. Everyone else: if you have to choose between ending one of these assholes and saving a kid, go for the kid. Thane and Kasumi won’t let them get away. Understood?”

There’s a murmur of agreement and the jovial atmosphere vanishes as everyone starts to really consider what they’re doing and why. Shepard can see the calm, focused look on Thane’s face and the way Kasumi’s hands are clenched at her sides – uncharacteristically angry. She knows they won’t let anyone get away. Especially not with everyone counting on them to remove that hard choice – save a life or end a threat. Good, because Shepard isn’t willing to settle for just one or the other.

They make their way up the stairs to the roof where the shuttle is waiting. It’s a tight fit with everybody and the atmosphere is tense as they make the trip in silence. Shepard dearly hopes that the humans from the market place simply write off her little squad and their fairly dramatic escape. The last thing they need complicating this plan is for the Shrikes to be on their guard.

The shuttle ride takes forty minutes and they coast in, setting down quietly in one of the drill tunnels peripheral to the mining complex. Thane and Kasumi disappear the moment they leave the shuttle and the rest of them split into their teams and start creeping forwards.

Shepard takes Garrus and Tali off on a different route to the others, trying to bring them quickly up to the catwalk level. The high ground will be a definite advantage, especially with Garrus. Tali won’t be able to bring her shotgun to bear from such a distance, but she will be able to deploy her drone and keep watch on their six with her pistol.

They stay as low as possible, Tali and Shepard have pulled out their M-6 Carnifex pistols for the extra bit of range and Garrus has his M-92 Mantis ready as they dash from one bit of less-than-adequate cover to the next.

“Team Princess, this is Team Battlemaster, where you at?” Shepard keeps her voice low, trying not to let it carry. EDI hadn’t found any evidence of sophisticated counter-surveillance from the base, so it was unlikely they’d be even remotely capable of hacking their coms.

Miranda’s sigh is marvellous, a symphony of ‘ _the things I put up with_ ’ and ‘ _just you wait ‘til we’re back on the ship_ ’ with just a hint of ‘ _I’m a professional, not a five year old_ ’, Shepard is so very, very happy that she didn’t veto the name.

“Almost there Commander, approaching the front entrance. So far so good – we’ll keep back until we get the report from Thane and Kasumi, but from here we can see a few guards at the front entrance and Zaeed thinks he saw the flash of a lens on the second floor as we were moving up.”

“Understood, Team Three check in.”

Jacobs voice cuts in smoothly, “Team Three here commander, the second entrance looks clear. Probably locked down pretty tight but if Legion can’t hack us in then I reckon Jack can probably blast the thing open if you don’t mind a bit of a mess.”

Shepard and Tali have made it about half way along the catwalk, any further and they’ll risk being seen by that second floor lookout. Garrus is another hundred meters back in a nice, tidy sniper perch. “Let’s wait to hear from our recon before we go blowing holes in things ok people? Find a nice hidey-hole and sit tight.”

Shepard and Tali press themselves against one of the two rather inadequate crates on their section of catwalk and settle in to wait. Glancing back, Shepard can see Garrus scoping out that second floor lookout rather impatiently. She cuts a look at Tali and they open a private team channel on the com, “Garrus don’t you fucking dare.”

“If you shoot him before the commander gives the go-ahead we’ll all die horrible deaths by vorcha you bosh'tet!” Tali adds, hotly.

Garrus lets out an aggrieved sounding harrumph, but eases back a little, “Just getting ready to take my shot… I was going to wait.”

“Sure you were. Keelah, you’re like a child.”

Shepard grins at their bickering, but before she can add anything Thane’s voice comes over the com in a low buzz.

“Commander, Miss Goto and I have finished our reconnaissance, it is as we suspected, a habitation complex for the miners that would have worked here. It is mostly living space, though there was a secure section in a sublevel we did not attempt to access. As was pointed out by Officer Vakarian, the vorcha are housed in a separate complex close by, they will become alerted the moment we attack.”

Kasumi interjects, “I’ve sent a quick layout update to your omnitools, nothing major but I think Team Three will want to check out that sublevel. It’s close to the back exit and if they’re holding any kids here that’s where they’ll be. Oh and Shep? I found a likely terminal. It’s right in the middle of their living space though so we won’t want to hit it until we’ve cleared the base.”

This is excellent news to Shepard, they won’t have to change their plans too much, “Alright. That seems clear enough. Team Three make your way inside to that sublevel, clear it then work back up to meet Team Princess, who will go straight in the front. Team Battlemaster will stay up on the catwalks and occupy the vorcha for you. Shout when you’re clear and we’ll extract. Understood?”

A chorus of agreement greets her question so Shepard unslings her grenade launcher and prepares to step out of cover, firing up her tech armour. “Alright people let’s move!”

The three teams spring into action simultaneously. Shepard keeps the com channel open, letting the chatter wash over her to keep a running sense of the battle.

As she stands and levels her M-100 in the direction of the vorcha compound, a booming shot travels past her, slipping oh so close to her shields. The lookout on the second level drops and Shepard can hear Garrus congratulating himself. Clearly his aim is just as steady as promised.

She listens with half of her attention to Team Princess breeching the front of the compound, covering somewhat for Team Three hacking their way in the second entry point. The rest of her awareness is focused intently on the vorcha compound. Until the vorcha come within the range of her grenade launcher, the most Shepard can do is stand here and look like a target.

Garrus is picking them off, one by one, but that’s barely going to make a dent in the numbers. Shepard is about to start looking for some way to get closer when all hell breaks loose. Like some kind of swarm behaviour, suddenly Garrus’s harassment of the vorcha catalyses them into frenzied motion.

More vorcha than Shepard can count, or is frankly comfortable with, start swarming forward towards Team Princess who are making their way inside and are still within line of sight.

Shepard gives a wild yell and fires, the soft _thunk_ of her grenade launcher rocking her back slightly and sending the explosive arcing into the centre of the leading edge of vorcha.

That gets their attention, vorcha begin rapidly swarming up the catwalks, firing wildly with their M-8 Avenger rifles. The hail of gunfire strikes Shepard’s shields as the vorcha advance.

Shepard barely has the attention to spare to listen to Jacob’s low, soothing voice or Mordin’s clipped, rapid speech, as she keeps firing, trying to hold back the advancing wave. A small part of her registers that they’ve clearly found some children, but it doesn’t penetrate her concentration.

Tali’s drone is darting in and out of the vorcha, grouping them together for Shepard to hit with her grenades, her pistol taking out stragglers at the edges.

Garrus is also attempting to force a bottleneck, sniping any vorcha that tries a different path. Their combined efforts are funnelling most of the vorcha onto the main ramp of the catwalk ahead of them so all Shepard has to do is stay planted and empty her rather oversized store of grenades.

Time slows and speeds up without regard to physics as Shepard’s awareness snaps between firing on the vorcha and ducking between the two meagre crates she has for cover, the only real measure of the battle is her steadily dwindling supply of ammunition.

A sharp yell over the com snaps out an automatic response, drilled in through years of command, “Lawson! Status!”

Miranda’s voice is slightly strained, “I’m fine commander! We’re nearly done in here, Thane disappeared a few minutes ago and we’ve nearly cleared the building. Just hang on!”

Shepard takes a deep breath, clearing her mind and calming her rapidly beating heart. Extraction will be coming soon, they just need to hold. She ducks down again automatically as her shields drop, absently noting a number of scorches and dents in her armour, she should probably have felt those. She will certainly feel them later.

Thanks to Garrus and Tali, they aren’t surrounded. As Shepard fires her last grenade and swaps to her SMG she begins a steady backwards retreat. The gap between herself and the vorcha which has been steadily closing now rapidly diminishes.

Shepard sees Tali swap to her Evicerator and throws out a cryoblast, followed swiftly by another throw. The biotic attack halts the advance enough for Shepard to reach the next patch of cover, and she’s nearly on top of Garrus’s position at this point.

Holding position until he can back up, Shepard and Tali empty a full clip each into the advancing ranks. A quick check to make sure Garrus is ready to cover them and then they’re retreating, covered by another cryoblast-throw combo and Tali’s drone, with Garrus continuing to pick them off.

Shepard can feel herself starting to tire, the repeated use of biotics coupled with the number of hits she’s taken to her armour are starting to wear, she can feel the pain and exhaustion hovering just on the other side of her adrenaline, ready to overtake her the moment she tries to rest. A quick look to her left, where Tali is throwing herself into cover, confirms that she’s feeling the strain too. They can’t keep this up much longer.

“Team Three clear!” Jacob’s voice suddenly cuts in, jolting Shepard’s train of thought.

“Team Princess clear!” Miranda’s strain has gotten more pronounced, exhaustion and pain flattening out her tone.

Shepard is straining to hear the next call over the com. Another throw to hold off the wave, a sweep of her SMG to clean up after Tali’s shotgun, and she ducks back into cover, tense and waiting.

“We’re here commander, time to extract.” Thane’s voice is so amazingly welcome that Shepard gives a little cheer. She lets Garrus retreat first, Zaeed and Thane covering him from the shuttle, which is hovering 80 meters back along the catwalk.

Then she and Tali are sprinting, not bothering to throw anything behind them, just running for all they’re worth as the vorcha give chase, overcome with bloodlust.

They’re nearly at the shuttle, which is hovering for a quick getaway. Shepard bodily lifts Tali, heaving her into Garrus’s waiting grip before hauling herself up, aided by Thane and Zaeed gripping her armour roughly as the shuttle lifts out of range and begins speeding away.

Shepard rolls onto her back on the floor, panting, with Tali sitting on her shins, leaning against Garrus, “Sitrep people, how we doing?”

Miranda straightens, keeping one hand pressed into a bloody patch on her jumpsuit on her left side. There’s a nasty looking graze on her temple, leaving half her face washed in red. It’s the worst Shepard has ever seen her but the fiercely upright stance and blazing victory in her eyes says that she’s never felt better.

“All hostiles are dead commander, we extracted Team Three to a location two kilometres away down a tunnel, and they’re patching themselves up and taking care of the children we found in the lower level. There are six, all very young, mostly turian but some human and batarian. EDI and Legion helped Kasumi trace their mobile base, we have a docking bay number, and from their records it seems like the ship is currently minimally staffed, awaiting resupply. It is very likely that there are no more children there.”

Shepard sighs, her head hitting the deck with a solid _thunk_ , she takes a quick look across at Garrus who is still coiled and tense, the mission not yet finished.

“Ok. Good. Well done everyone, that’s fantastic.” She tries to sit up, every muscle cramping in protest as she shoves Tali off her legs, “EDI get us something on that docking area, I want us in position with good intel as soon as possible. We’ll send the shuttle back for the others, they can take the kids straight to the _Normandy_ and then meet up with us.”

Standing, she makes her way over to the seat next to Garrus, patting his armoured thigh absently as she sits, “Alright, let’s make this next bit short and sweet,” she pulls up the maps sent over by EDI on her omnitool, projecting them for everyone to see, “There’s a few ships on this dock, but that’s the one we want right there.” She points to a small cargo vessel, Kowloon class, at the end of the dock, “It’s a pretty small ship, so once we secure the dock I’ll take Garrus and Tali inside and call if we need backup.”

A few sharp nods greet her statement as they coast in towards the dock. Dropping down behind some large shipping crates, Shepard waves the shuttle back for Jacob’s team and their rescued children then moves around the edge to get a good look at where the ship waits.

Security is light, with only a pair of humans sitting outside the docking ramp. Shepard would like to get someone inside as quickly as possible though, in case they simply try to leave.

“Thane… do you think you could get past those guards and get inside before we break cover? I don’t want them taking off at the first sign of trouble.”

Thane takes a considering look at the docking ramp, “I can undoubtedly get past them, but entering the ship without detection is another matter, the decontamination protocol will not allow it.”

“Fuck. Ok that’s fine. We’ll just have to be very insistent. Garrus, Thane, I want those two down simultaneously when I give the word. Everyone else spread out as quietly as possible please, I want a perimeter around this docking ramp.”

Garrus and Thane unclip their sniper rifles and take position as Miranda waves her team back to start moving around the stacked crates. Tali sticks close to Shepard as they inch forward. There’s a lot of cover on the cluttered docking area, large crates are stacked in rows waiting to be loaded.

Shepard and Tali move off to the left of the ramp, ready to dash in an override the lock once the two guards are down. Settling into a crouch, Shepard pulls out her Locust and hits her com, “Alright, we’re in position. Take them down.”

A tremendous crack as the two sniper rifles go off simultaneously, and Shepard and Tali are already running in towards the airlock. The docking ramp is short and Shepard plants herself in the centre with her tech armour humming as Tali sets to work on the door. She has a limited cone of vision however, so the first she knows that something has gone wrong is Garrus’s shout.

“Shepard! Ymir!”

_Oh sweet fuck._

The dreadful stomping of the Ymir approaching the docking ramp reaches Shepard’s ears and she dares not look away from the entrance, “Tali, how’s that bypass coming? We’re about to be in some serious shit here!”

“Give me some time, Shepard! Bypassing ship systems isn’t the same as breaking into an equipment locker!”

“Fuck. Fuck! Ok. Garrus, I can’t move. Tali is stuck down the end of this ramp and I’m the only thing between her and this mech, you’re going to have to try and divert it!”

“Understood commander. I’ll get its attention.”

Shepard takes a moment to cringe at the thought of Garrus playing chicken with a heavy mech then makes sure her Locust has a full clip and edges forward, pulling up an overload on her omnitool.

The Ymir edges into view at the end of the ramp, still intent on preventing the intruders from breaking into the ship. Miranda’s voice comes over the com, “Garrus, Shepard! We’re in position, overload on three?”

A combined overload from all three of them would probably strip the mechs shields entirely, Shepard doesn’t hesitate. Counting out the timing quickly, she flings out her omnitool at the same time as Garrus and Miranda. The overloads hit almost simultaneously, frying the shields of the mech and overheating its weapon systems for a few critical seconds.

“Take it down! Before it can fire!” Shepard swaps quickly to her Carnifex, more effective against armour, and opens up.

One shot of the mechs rocket launcher into the ramp tube and both she and Tali would be dead, there’s absolutely no room for error.

She empties her clip rapidly, concussive shots from Zaeed, Grunt and Garrus rocking the Ymir back every time it tries to recover. Shepard moves to swap her clip as suddenly, against all probability, the mech ascends gracefully into the air.

Suspended in a blue glow of biotics the mech is rendered helpless, unable to get a firing solution as it spins slowly towards where Samara has planted herself, hands extended as she maintains the biotic field.

The rest of the squad wastes no time in opening up on the Ymir, quickly obliterating it in a hail of gunfire. There’s a distinct beeping sound as the mech prepares to self-destruct, a last dich effort to take out its target.

“Miranda!” Shepard screams, no time for anything more than the name and a hope that the operative will understand what needs to be done.

Shepard lets the throw take the last remnants of her energy, putting everything she’s got into getting that mech as far from them as possible. Miranda comes through, adding her own throw, and their combined efforts send it shooting up into the far reaches of the docking hangar.

Shepard drops to her knees as the mech explodes, far from where it can do any damage, “Please tell me there’s no more.”

Miranda comes on the com, sounding as tired as Shepard feels, “All clear commander.”

“Thank fuck. Samara that was amazing. You’re amazing. You’re _all_ amazing.”

Tali lets out a small hiss of victory, “We’re in Shepard.”

“Good work Tali, Garrus, take Tali, Grunt and Zaeed inside, you’re in charge. We biotics won’t be much help after that little stunt. Thane keep an eye on the approach.”

Garrus steps up, swapping to his Vindicator assault rifle, “Right, Grunt take point, Tali with me, Zaeed watch our six. Pick your targets, their manifests might be wrong about there being no more kids here.”

Shepard watches with pride as everyone moves quickly to follow Garrus into the ship, and begins making her tired way down the ramp as the airlock shuts behind them.

She meets Miranda at the bottom of the ramp, slinging an arm around her shoulder. Miranda stiffens a little, then relaxes, “Nicely done Lawson, you gonna be ok? That looks like a bad hit.” She gestures to the puncture wound in Miranda’s side.

“Yes commander, I’ll be fine. One of their biotics threw me onto some rubble, I landed on a metal bar but it’s not that deep.”

Shepard winces in sympathy but doesn’t say anything, Miranda doesn’t need babying. She moves away and taps her com, “Team Three, you make it back to the _Normandy_ ok?”

Jacob picks up the line immediately, “Just arriving now commander, Mordin is transferring the kids to Dr. Chakwas now. We ended up having to sedate them, they were pretty freaked out. Did you need us to come back you up?”

Shepard doesn’t reply straight away, instead pinging Garrus on her private team channel, “Garrus, you ok in there? Need backup?”

His reply comes back with a pleased-sounding hum under his words, “Not going to be necessary, Shepard. There were only a few humans aboard. They shot at Grunt, so they’re not a problem anymore. We’re just clearing out their databanks now. What do you want to do with the ship?”

Shepard cuts her eye sideways to where Samara is standing next to Miranda but she’s probably not close enough to hear, “Get Tali to fudge the ownership. We’ll sell it to the Migrant Fleet. It looks like a decent ship and we could use some credits that won’t trace back to the Illusive Man.”

Garrus gives a little chuckle, “Yeah, sure thing. We’ll wrap this up and meet you outside soon.”

Switching back to her channel with Jacob, Shepard replies, “Nah, Garrus is just cleaning up in there with some of the others. If you could send the shuttle round to pick us up though, that would be great… and Jacob? This was really well done. Tell Gardner that you all deserve something really nice. We’ll meet in the mess after everyone’s had a chance to clean up and put their gear away.”

“Sure thing commander, thanks!” and he disconnects, not one for idle chatting.

They haven’t got long to wait, the shuttle arrives only moments before Garrus leads his team back out of the ship. Tali setting a more sophisticated locking program up as they exit. The group piles in to where the biotics are already waiting, and they’re away.

It’s a short trip back to the _Normandy_ , but certainly long enough for Shepard’s tired muscles to be cramping as she disembarks in the shuttle bay. She can see the others hobbling a little too, this was a bit of a longer mission than most of them are used to.

They cram into the elevator, riding up to the CIC and Armoury. Everyone piles out to take care of their weapons except Shepard, who holds the door open for a moment, “Alright, clean up, stow your gear and meet up in the mess in fifteen. We saved some kids today, and we deserve a drink.”

The elevator door shuts on the team’s pleased exclamations and Shepard rides the rest of the way up to her cabin.

It doesn’t take her long to strip out of her armour and shower, her muscles warming back up in the hot spray. She dries quickly, slipping on a monochrome Cerberus uniform. She hates the things, but she’ll be damned if she’s going to let the Illusive Man get under her skin like that.

Palming the lock she makes her way back down to the crew level. Jacob and his team are already in the mess, having gotten cleaned up as the rest of them were making their way back in the shuttle. Shepard wanders over to where Jack is seated next to Mordin and Kasumi and drops heavily into a seat.

Only a few moments later and the others begin arriving, having finished getting cleaned up themselves. Garrus has been forced into civies, his armour smeared in vorcha from when Shepard hugged him earlier, and he looks almost unrecognizable without all the extra bulk. Shepard gives him a grin and he smiles back, mandibles flared, looking decidedly more relaxed than he’s been since the marketplace.

Tali takes a seat across from Shepard, next to Thane and Jacob and Shepard leans towards her, still grinning, “So that kiosk is probably blown to hell and covered in frozen people chunks… but that scarf was pretty, wasn’t it?”

To her surprise, Tali groans and holds her helmet in her hands, shaking her head, “Oh keelah! Everything happened so fast and I didn’t mean to but I forgot to put the scarf down!” She reaches into a fold of the wrap she wears over her suit and sure enough, there’s the scarf – deep purple and gold. Tali looks up at Shepard miserably, “I’m a bad person.”

Shepard lets out a single bark of laughter then smothers herself with both hands, shaking in her seat, tears squeezing out of the corners of her eyes.

Garrus cuts in from down the table over the sound of Shepard’s muffled wheezing, his own voice laced with amusement, “Tali! What would your family say, proving all those nasty stereotypes about quarians right! How could you?”

Tali groans again, burying her face deeper into her hands, “Stop laughing! This is serious!”

Kasumi leans over, snatching the scarf out of Tali’s hands, “I’ll say. This some genuine quality. You’re a natural talent, Tali! Maybe I should get _your_ help with my little heist rather than Shep’s, hmm?”

Tali sinks low in her seat, mortified, and Shepard leans back, soaking in the banter. She lets her gaze travel over the team mingling cheerfully. Jack and Mordin are chatting away, as are Legion and Samara. Kasumi is teasing Tali and Zaeed and Jacob are sharing stories with Thane. This is the kind of camaraderie that Shepard had been hoping for. Looking up, across the room, she catches sight of Chakwas tending to the sleeping children in the medical bay. Overall, Shepard decides, day’s been a much better success than she could have hoped for.

_Merry Christmas, Normandy._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
